Yeah, this isn't exactly as earth-shattering as the introduction of a new Corvette, or even a new Mazda6. But this little car is significant to the auto industry in so many ways. First, it signals that Mazda is finally ready to start really competing with the Euro-zone's mainstream manufacturers, who nearly all offer three-door versions of their small cars (Mazda still doesn't sell a three-door Mazda3, for example). Second, this is, potentially, a great little car [sic]. Compared to the past generation, Mazda has reduced the vehicle's weight by more than just the two missing doors. That's right: debloat. Finally, the Mazda2 is likely coming to America in a year or two, although it'll probably be the sedan version because apparently we Americans really like sedans. The new 2– especially with the automatic– may not be a revelation to drive, but it's another strong contender in the increasingly vital cheap and cheerful category.

[Pixamo gallery of the Mazda2 here.] 

Reuters reports that the strike at American Axle is forcing General Motors to idle production at two more plants: Moraine, Ohio (Chevrolet Trailblazer and GMC Envoy) and the AMC General plant in Mishawaka, Indiana (Hummer H2). This brings the total number of off-line production facilities to six, including the four factories that produce the GMC Sierra and Chevrolet Silverado pickup trucks. Job-wise, "13,700 GM workers, or almost 20 percent of its blue-collar work force, could be laid off this week." Next in the firing line: Yukatahoeburbelade production in Arlington, Texas and Janesville, Wisconsin. GM is down-playing the strike's effects on its bottom line. Marketing maven Mark LaNeve painted the problem as a convenient way to keep inventories low– in the face of February's 20 percent decline in truck sales. But GM [still] depends on the big rigs for the lion's share of its profits. If the strike stretches on, if truck inventories sink below severely diminished demand, the drain on GM's cash flow will be nothing short of catastrophic.

I don’t think much of the Lamborghini Gallardo. The design is precise and well polished, but lacks passion. When I think Lamborghini, I imagine something outrageous, with indecent technology that has nothing to do with common sense. The Gallardo seems to be all about common sense. OK, I'll say it: it's a bit boring. Now that Lambo's paymasters sell the sober supercar known as the Audi R8 (not to mention the Porsche Turbo), Lamborghini should be free to kick out the jams. In the interests of cost containment, I imagined a successor of the Gallardo that's a reskinned Italian R8. It should be indecent in appearance, but too intriguing to make you look away. Outlandish and totally original, but with close connections to its ancestors. With “Lambo doors” (it is after all one of the few cars where they are justified), rear wheel drive (could keep AWD as an option) and a hazard warning paintwork, the new baby bull could inspire a whole new generation of teenage wall posters. Hey, it beats working for a living…

[For more Avarvarii photochopistry, click here]

Deutsche Welle reports that Porsche is officially the Maus that Roared. Porsche Automobil Holdings will shell-out $15b for the final 20 percent of Volkswagen shares. Subject to regulatory approval, Porsche will gain controlling interest in Europe's largest automaker. Porsche CEO Wendelin Wiedeking called the deal "a new and collegial partnership"– immediately evoking unpleasant memories of Daimler’s "merger of equals" with Chrysler. Anyway, there’s a lot of work to be done: VW’s non-existent market positioning, overlapping brands, U.S. product quality, etc. Still, if there's even a remote chance that Porsche’s takeover– sorry, “assistance” will lead to stateside VW's becoming even a little more Porsche-like, the deal has our unqualified blessing. We’re not holding our breath.

GM and Chrysler weren't the only ones singing the blues when February's sales numbers plunked onto the e-mat. Automotive News [sub] reports Ford and Toyota also showed declines in February– although not quite as precipitous as The General and Mopar. Ford's sales fell 6.3 percent compared to last February, while Toyota's (including Scion and Lexus) dropped a jaw-dropping 6.6 percent (when adjusted for the extra selling day this year). Toyota's atypical performance is attributed to poor truck sales. Group vice president of marketing admitted that ToMoCo's full-size truck and SUV sales "could get tougher before it gets better." With a 37 percent decline in the U.S. construction industry, Randy Pflughaupt ain't just whistling Dixie. Honda, Mazda and Nissan, on the other hand, bucked the trend and actually posted gains. Honda was up 4.9 percent, Mazda increased 6.7 percent and Nissan rose 1.2 percent. Hmmm… the two companies with no V8 engines and no full-sized pickups or huge SUVs showed the largest gains. What does that tell you?

Chrysler's 14 percent February sales drop was, in and of itself, a staggering hit. But Automotive News [sub] reports that this decline occurred in the face of an aggressive campaign of profit-killing consumer incentives. In February, ChryCo "led" the market in incentives, kicking-up the deals by five percent to an average of $3,579 a vehicle. We're talking zero percent interest for 72 months on most remaining 2007 models and zero percent financing for 62 months on select 2008 models. Heading into March, the automaker is following the Churchillian advise: "When going through Hell, keep going." Chrysler is upping incentives by another five percent this month, and loading-up the special deals: a free Hemi upgrade for Ram buyers, a free tank of gasoline, a $500 rebate to U.S. military personnel (on top of any other incentives) and (ironically enough given the Plastech debacle) a $500 rebate to employees of companies that supply Chrysler components. Meanwhile, the automaker reported Chrysler Sebring sales soared by 92.5 percent in February, while Dodge Avenger sales rose 59.6 percent. Which makes us discount Chrysler's assertion that it cut back on rental fleet sales, and leaves us wondering: where would their numbers be without fleet sales?

As if it already isn't hard enough to negotiate rush hour traffic in downtown Toronto… Whilst in the midst of lane-changing, I noticed a big blue box trying to buzz past. The boys from the big Blue Oval were out in their next save-the-company Hail Mary: the Ford Flex. The LE version of the FoMoCo people mover snuck-up behind me in south-of-the-border guise– no daytime running lights– on its way to somewhere (but still not a showroom). I managed to snap a couple of camera-phone shots. Let's just hope it lives up to the three years of hype once this big ass xB finally goes on sale.

According to MSNBC, this not-surprising stat comes from a six-year study investigating the deaths of 10k child passengers. Do the math, and it gets even scarier; car crashes are now the leading cause of death for teens. The specifics are depressingly predictable. "More than three-quarters of the fatal crashes occurred on roads with speed limits higher than 45 mph, and nearly two-thirds of the young passengers were not wearing seat belts." Who doesn't wear seat belts? Sure, every blue moon you run into someone that claims they survived a crash because they weren't wearing a seatbelt. But then the conversation quickly changes to tin foil hats and anal probing at the hands of alien abductors. Personally, I disagree with one of the study's recommendations– raising the minimum age for a learner's permit to 16-years-old. My dad taught me to drive when I was 12, and I feel I'd be an even safer driver if I had learned earlier. Anyhow, assuming that raising the driver's permit age will stem fatal teen-driver accidents, what about the other 4600 children killed with adults behind the wheel?

I live in a hilly area of high-crowned, barely two-lane back roads. There are no center lines, lots of blind corners, hills and crests; and not much traffic. You could say it’s an enthusiast's paradise. But then… stupid drivers. It happened to me last week, for the third time in a year. A driver without the slightest situational awareness put me into a ditch, leaving me yelping moronically and bleating my horn while they sped off. This has got to stop.

Well here we go from Geneva. Saab pulled the giant sheet off the 9-X concept car. And not surprisingly, it's really good looking. We can tell that because it looks a lot like the other Saab concepts that they've shown but not built. This one, however, is destined for production in one form or another. It even has a really cool gimmicky integrated power-operated rear spoiler on the roof. A 1.4-liter turbocharged engine makes 170 horses, or 200 if you can find/afford E85 (for the sake of the children, please don't). The 9-X also features a hybrid system, but GM isn't saying how much power it'll contribute. Now the but. But…they're going to build it on the Delta platform that underpins such awesome cars as the Chevy Cobalt, Saturn Ion, Pontiac G5, and Chevy HHR. Oh the horror…

[Pixamo gallery of the now-you-see-it-now-you-won't 9-X here] 

When contemplating the full horror of February's sales stats, the key metric to keep in mind is -6.3 percent. That number represent the overall decline in new car sales for the month, relative to '07. Automotive News [AN, sub] reports that Chrysler was the biggest loser in this declining market, registering a 14 percent February sales drop. Truck sales, upon which ChryCo's fortunes (or lack thereof) depend, sank 22 percent. The situation over at GM, is equally dire. Sales for the month dropped by 12.9 percent. Both automakers responded to the news with characteristic bravado/denial. GM Marketing Maven Mark LaNeve told analysts it's everybody's problem ("Toyota, Ford, all had a difficult month") and blamed the media ("I personally believe that this discussion of a recession hurts consumer confidence"). Chrysler's executive vice president of North American sales said the sun will come out tomorrow. While predicting double digit declines for every month for the rest of the year (!), Steven Landry said "We know there will be an upside. If it is March we want to be ready." Yes, well, if sales at GM and Chrysler continue to crater at this pace, both carmakers' cash conflagration will force them to file. It's simply a question of who'll file first. 

I was getting dinner with auto-journal colleague Mike Bumbeck. We were sitting in the left turn lane behind a minivan, about to turn onto a four lane street. The minivan is going slowly. It appears to be heading into the left most lane. OK, I think, I'll swing into the right lane and go around the lumbering kiddie carrier. Suddenly, from the left lane, the white blob cuts hard right, swinging in front of me and heading into the strip mall. "Crazy Ivan! Crazy Ivan!" Bumbeck shouts, referencing The Hunt For Red October. If you've forgotten, submarines can't look behind them– the propellers cause enough noise and disturbance to effectively create a sonar gap. Russian subs took to the practice of suddenly making sharp turns in order to look behind them. Bumbeck said he developed the term when he used to ride motorcycles. The good news? My car has great brakes. What driving habits really piss you off? [Look for former Car and Driver editor Stephan Wilkinson's feelings on the subject in an editorial tomorrow.]

Carnegie Mellon University's National Robotics Engineering Center is proud to present (in that deep voice radio promo ad sort of way) Crusher. As you can see (especially if you're a professional weight guesser), it's a 6.5-ton, six-wheeled, armor-clad robot designed to eliminate 1998 American cars to protect Mexican car dealers. Crusher has no human operator (always a mistake in sci-fi flicks). Instead, it uses a program called UPI to defeat obstacles, advance through enemy defenses, wield weapons and (if UPI includes a couple of Asimov's three laws of robotics) protect human troops. As reported by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Crusher is a turbo-diesel/electric hybrid whose batteries power motors in each wheel. Individual wheel suspension allows Crusher to roll up to 26 mph over rough terrain, successfully traversing large ditches, man-made barriers or crappy used cars. In a recent demonstration at Fort Bliss, DARPA's Stephen Welby raved about the future Army recruiting star for career-challenged fans of monster truck jams. "To understand how fast it operated in this environment, you have to understand that we were bouncing around [in a vehicle following Crusher], and I could barely walk afterwards with pain in my kidneys." (One surmounts stones, the other causes them.) CMU's NREC director of acronyms Steve Di Antonio thinks the vehicle and software have potential applications in construction, farming and mining. We're waiting for its first rap video appearance and the inevitable stretch Crusher limo.

In a severely under-capitalized (in the lexicographical sense of the word) press release, GM has announced that it's booted chief financial officer Fritz Henderson upstairs. At today's meeting of the company's board of Bystanders directors, Fritz officially became GM's president and chief operating officer. Even though GM's busy cutting jobs (and how), Fritz' new post is an exercise in executive job creation. Rick Wagoner explained/justified it thus: "There's a lot going on at GM today… It's an opportune time to further bolster our top leadership structure; specifically, it's the right time to reestablish GM's traditional President and Chief Operating Officer position." The President of the board couldn't agree more. "The GM board is excited about the direction that GM is headed," George Fisher opined. "Tremendous progress has been made… these executive appointments will further support our business strategy and the work that needs to be done to achieve our growth, technology leadership and financial objectives." Uh… is it too late to reconsider that Bob Lutz award?

Here's a tip you won't get from Warren Buffet: invest in Bugatti. You may recall Stephen Wilkinson's less than flattering blog post on the launch of a Bugatti with a slightly lightened version of it's 1,000+hp ubercar, the Veyron Pur Sang. It used a little more carbon fiber, avoided paint for exterior aluminum bits, weighed 200 pounds less and cost €1.4 million ($2.1 million). That was then. Today, finecars has one of the five Pur Sangs on sale for the "fixed price" of 3.2 million Euros. That's 4.8 million McDonald's cheeseburgers to you and me. Assuming some sucker a discerning car buyer shells out nearly $5m for the fastest ever Volkswagen, the seller will have made a tidy 230 percent profit. See? I knew that was going to happen. I really am in the wrong line of work…